The present invention concerns a pizza oven fuelled with compressed wood shavings or pellets.
More specifically, the present invention refers to an oven for the direct or indirect cooking of pizzas, bread, cakes or any other edible product, with a structure designed to obtain thermal uniformity inside the cooking chamber thanks also to the fuel used.
It is a known fact that wood ovens, equipped with a combustion chamber accessible from the outside by means of an appropriate opening and communicating with a furnace in which vegetable fuel is placed, are used for cooking edible products.
Wood ovens present certain problems which can limit their field of application.
One problem derives from the fact that a wood oven must be periodically fed with vegetable fuel with consequent opening of the stoking door and inevitable heat dispersion.
Another problem is represented by the fact that combustion of woody material inevitably leads to the production of ash residues that often deposit on the floor of the oven and sometimes on the products themselves during cooking.
Document US-A-5429110 discloses a mobile pellet stove with thermal barrier and ventilated firepot, including a housing divided by a thermal barrier, which is defined by a spaced pair of partitions, into a hot compartment and a cold compartment. The hot compartment includes a ventilated firepot suspended within an air channel that communicates with the cold compartmente through the thermal barrier. The cold compartment is subdivided by a funnel into a fuel pellet storage compartment thereabove and an electrical compartment therebelow. This stove is of the forced air circulation type, and requires the presence of a blower for supplying air inside the hot compartment and for cooling the cold compartment where the electrical components are housed.
The present invention intends to provide a pellet-fuelled pizza oven capable of consuming minimal quantities of fuel thus developing a considerable amount of heat evenly distributed inside the cooking chamber.
The present invention also intends to provide a pellet-fuelled pizza oven presenting, with respect to ovens according to the current technique, a large cooking chamber and a furnace with extremely limited dimensions.
This is achieved by means of a pellet-fuelled pizza oven having the features described in claim 1.
The dependent claims describe advantageous forms of embodiment of the invention.
The pellet-fuelled pizza oven according to the present invention consists of a structure, made from low heat dispersion material, designed to support a cooking chamber, equipped with an opening for the insertion and removal of products to be cooked, communicating with a furnace fuelled continuously with pellets from a tank.
According to the invention, the pellets consist of compressed briquettes of wood shavings with minute granulometry.
This fuel reaches the furnace in minimum predetermined doses in order to ensure a continuous supply of calorific energy.
The furnace therefore has extremely reduced dimensions leaving, without changing the overall dimensions of the oven, plenty of room for the cooking chamber which can contain a high number of products.
The controlled amount of fuel inside the furnace means that there is a very limited dispersion of ash residue, to the advantage of the products taken out of the oven which no longer have dirty surfaces.
Fuelling of the furnace can be achieved by gravity, positioning the tank containing the pellets above the oven and connecting it to the furnace by means of a duct equipped with a choking means, for example an on-off valve, to control the flow of fuel towards the oven.
According to another aspect of this invention, the fuel can be fed into the furnace by means of any appropriate operating machine receiving energy from a respective source of motion.
This operating machine can consist of an Archimedes' screw connected kinematically to an electric motor.
In addition to taking up very little room inside the furnace, the pellets, already used moreover in heating stoves, present a high calorific power and an extremely limited percentage of ashes.
Their reduced granulometry, around 6-7 millimetres, favours complete oxidation and combustion with a minimum risk of producing extremely harmful carbon monoxide.
The oven according to the invention also makes it possible to obtain another important advantage in terms of hygiene: in fact, thanks to the basically automatic infeed of the fuel, the operator is no longer obliged to come into manual contact either with the food or with the wood, as is the case with traditional wood ovens.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent on reading the following description of some forms of embodiment of the invention, given as non-limiting examples, with the help of the enclosed drawings, in which:
In the figures, reference sign 10 generally indicates a pellet-fuelled pizza oven, in the case in question an oven 10 which consists of a structure 11, made from insulated material, designed to support a cooking chamber 12 communicating with a furnace 13.
The chamber 12 presents a floor 14 on which the products to be cooked 15 can be placed, and an upper closing wall 16 preferably having a concave vault configuration towards the interior of the oven 10 to ensure a good degree of uniform thermal gradient.
In its central part, close to the floor 14, the front wall of the oven 10 has an opening 17, fitted with a closing door 18, through which the products 15 can be inserted and removed.
The furnace 13 presents extremely reduced dimensions and communicates, by means of a duct 19, with a tank 20 supported by a respective framework 21 in order to raise it above the furnace 13 itself.
Moreover, according to an embodiment not illustrated in the figures, the furnace 13 can be positioned inside the cooking chamber 12.
The tank 20 can be fitted with a door 22 to close an opening 23 for loading the fuel which, for example, can consist of compressed briquettes of wood shavings called pellets 24.
The granulometry of the pellets 24 is normally around 6-7 millimetres in order to favour oxidation processes, limiting the risks of producing unburnt substances or harmful gases such as carbon monoxide.
The pellets 24 tend to fall by gravity from the tank 20 through the duct 19 which, preferably in the part close to the furnace 13, presents a choking means, for example an on-off valve 25, which controls the flow of fuel 24 towards the oven 10.
The choking means 25 can be a solenoid valve connected, by means of an electric cable 26, to an electronic unit 27 designed to control its functioning.
The furnace 13 can be equipped with a mass transducer 13a, which detects the amount of pellets 24 under combustion, and a temperature sensor 28 connected respectively by means of cables 29 and 30 to the electronic control unit 27.
The upper wall 16 of the oven 10 can also be equipped with temperature sensors and in particular intermediate 31 and upper sensors 32.
The sensors 31 and 32 detect the temperature in the cooking chamber 12 and send the relative signal, by means of the electric cables 33, to the electronic control unit 27.
The latter, receiving inputs from the various sensors 28, 31, 32, and from the transducer 13a, activates the appropriate opening of the on-off valve 25 in relation to the temperature of the furnace 13, of the cooking chamber 12 and of the mass of pellets 24 under combustion.
This ensures a minimum dose of fuel inside the furnace 13 with practically no dispersion of ash residue inside the chamber 12.
With reference to figure 2, another embodiment is shown, which foresees the positioning of the tank 20 in any area close to the oven 10 without necessarily being above the furnace 13.
In this case, the pellets 24 reach the furnace thanks to the action of an operating machine, for example a screw conveyor 34.
The latter is situated inside the duct 19 and is connected kinematically to an appropriate source of motion, for example an electric motor 35.
The motor 35 presents a drive shaft 36, which can be inserted in a reduction unit 37, connected kinematically to a shaft 38 of the screw conveyor 34.
The tank 20 presents a tube 39 communicating with the part of the conveyor 34 close to the reduction unit 37.
The pellets 24 pass through the tube 39 and reach the duct 19 where the action of the conveyor screw 34 carries them towards the furnace 13.
The electric motor 35 can be the traditional type, with a gearmotor and a rhythmic drive device, or the inverter type and connected, by means of an electric circuit 40, to the control unit 27.
In this way, the control unit 27 sets an appropriate rotation rhythm for the drive shaft 36 and consequently for the shaft 38 of the feeder screw 34 thus controlling the delivery of the fuel 24 to the furnace 13.
The electronic control unit 27 is connected to a small console (not shown in the drawings), clearly visible and accessible externally, equipped with displays which show the temperature values inside the cooking chamber 12 and the furnace 13 together with the amount of fuel 24 consumed.
The console can be equipped with a keyboard on which an operator can programme the functioning of the oven 10.